Mr. Britling Sees It Through

gathered a little crowd of people, village girls in white gloves and cheerful hats, young men in bright ties and ready-made Sunday suits, fathers and mothers, boy scouts, children, clerks in straw hats, bicyclists and miscellaneous folk. Over their heads rose Mr. Cheshunt, the factotum of the estate. He was standing on a table and handing the little balloons up into the air one by one. They floated up from his hand like many-coloured grapes, some rising and falling, some soaring steadily upward, some spinning and eddying, drifting eastward before the gentle breeze, a string of bubbles against the sky and the big trees that bounded the park. Farther away to the right were the striped canvas tents of the flower-show, still farther off the roundabouts churned out their music, the shooting galleries popped, and the swing boats creaked through the air. Cut off from these things by a line of fencing lay the open park in which the deer grouped themselves under the great trees and regarded the festival mistrustfully. Teddy and Hugh appeared breaking away from the balloon race cluster, and hurrying back to their dart-throwing. A man outside a little tent that stood apart was putting up a brave-looking notice, “Unstinted Teas One Shilling.” The Teddy perambulator was moored against the coconut shy, and Aunt Wilshire was still displaying her terrible prowess at the coconuts. Already she had won twenty-seven. Strange children had been impressed by her to carry them, and formed her retinue. A wonderful old lady was Aunt Wilshire.⁠ ⁠…

Then across all the sunshine of this artless festival there appeared, as if it were writing showing through a picture, “France Invaded by Germany; Germany Invaded by Russia.”

Mr. Britling turned again towards the wicket, with its collectors of tribute, that led into the Gardens.

§ 12

The Claverings gardens, and particularly the great rockery, the lily pond, and the herbaceous borders, were unusually populous with unaccustomed visitors and shy young couples. Mr. Britling had to go to the house for instructions, and guided by the under-butler found Lady Homartyn hiding away in the walled Dutch garden behind the dairy. She had been giving away the prizes of the flower-show, and she was resting in a deck chair while a spinster relation presided over the tea. Mrs. Britling had fled the outer festival earlier, and was sitting by the tea-things. Lady Meade and two or three visitors had motored out from Hartleytree to assist, and Manning had come in with his tremendous confirmation of all that the morning papers had foreshadowed.

“Have you any news?” asked Mr. Britling.

“It’s war!” said Mrs. Britling.

“They are in Luxembourg,” said Manning. “That can only mean that they are coming through Belgium.”

“Then I was wrong,” said Mr. Britling, “and the world is altogether mad. And so there is nothing else for us to do but win.⁠ ⁠… Why could they not leave Belgium alone?”

“It’s been in all their plans for the last twenty years,” said Manning.

“But it brings us in for certain.”

“I believe they have reckoned on that.”

“Well!” Mr. Britling took his tea and sat down, and for a time he said nothing.

“It is three against three,” said one of the visitors, trying to count the Powers engaged.

“Italy,” said Manning, “will almost certainly refuse to fight. In fact Italy is friendly to us. She is bound to be. This is, to begin with, an Austrian war. And Japan will fight for us.⁠ ⁠…”

“I think,” said old Lady Meade, “that this is the suicide of Germany. They cannot possibly fight against Russia and France and ourselves. Why have they ever begun it?”

“It may be a longer and more difficult war than people suppose,” said Manning. “The Germans reckon they are going to win.”

“Against us all?”

“Against us all. They are tremendously prepared.”

“It is impossible that Germany should win,” said Mr. Britling, breaking his silence. “Against her Germany has something more than armies; all reason, all instinct⁠—the three greatest peoples in the world.”

“At present very badly supplied with war material.”

“That may delay things; it may make the task harder; but it will not alter the end. Of course we are going to win. Nothing else is thinkable. I have never believed they meant it. But I see now they meant it. This insolent arming and marching, this forty years of national blustering; sooner or later it had to topple over into action.⁠ ⁠…”

He paused and found they were listening, and he was carried on by his own thoughts into further speech.

“This isn’t the sort of war,” he said, “that is settled by counting guns and rifles. Something that has oppressed us all has become intolerable and has to be ended. And it will be ended. I don’t know what soldiers and politicians think of our prospects, but I do know what ordinary reasonable men think of the business. I know that all we millions of reasonable civilised onlookers are prepared to spend our last shillings and give all our lives now, rather than see Germany unbeaten. I know that the same thing is felt in America, and that given half a chance, given just one extra shake of that foolish mailed fist in the face of America, and America also will be in this war by our side. Italy will come in. She is bound to come in. France will fight like one man. I’m quite prepared to believe that the Germans have countless rifles and guns; have got the most perfect maps, spies, plans you can imagine. I’m quite prepared to hear that they have got a thousand tremendous surprises in equipment up their sleeves. I’m quite prepared for sweeping victories for them and appalling disasters for us. Those are the first things. What I do know is that the Germans understand nothing of the spirit of man; that they do not dream for a moment of the devil of resentment this war will arouse. Didn’t we all trust them not to let off their guns? Wasn’t that the essence of our liberal and pacific faith? And here